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the--artist · 8 months ago

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This is seriously the most underrated Korekiyo analysis I’ve ever bumped into. It’s incredibly well written, thought provoking and insightful. I literally come back to this some nights to just reread it - and every time I leave this with some new thoughts.

Highly recommend you check it out!!

A Long Winded Attempt to Understand Korekiyo (A Korekiyo Analysis)

How did i get here... (Why do i like this guy)

So cards on the table, i knew of korekiyo's whole creepy vibes far off in advanced before i ever touched the game. nothing in specifics, but i did go into v3 knowing korekiyo reeked of controversy in the fanbase. that resident creepy guy that stranger danger warns you of.

and yeah during my first playthrough of v3, to say i was distrubed puts it lightly. not only was he jammed into a pretty anti-climatic trial 3 (wow ur telling me the guy who started the seance MAY IN FACT be the one able to use it for his own nefarious reasons WOWOW), i was deeply distrubed by this man's blatant disregard for any human diginity or empathy.

only to see that somehow people liked him?! i chaulked it up to those people who just enjoy fictional serial killers, and since i dont enjoy that trope much, i left it that

so how did i end up late at night writing however long this post is going to be trying to analyze him

beats me but lets do a little superficial list for funsies before delving into more critical analysis territory :D

Kiyo can be kinda cool B) (in my subjective opinion)

His interest in anthropology is pretty cool and i like whenever he contributes his own musings about human customs and such. as disconnected he does seem from human life, there is an interesting paradox with his talent relating to observing human life. moreover, there's always something so amusing seeing such a collected character becoming excited over his interest, such as during fte and his talent lab during ch3 :D

small note, but there is something endearing during the ch1 investigation in his awareness of being the "creepy" one of the group. it shows his awareness of himself which idk its funny to me

He has a cool design (Minus the actual outfit for ... uh ... it's very uncomfortable parallels .____.) with him being the few dr characters who have an aspect of androgyny to themselves (aside from chihiro and sakura, but it's more like they conform to the opposite gender role than be in the middle). now while i will address why it gets more problematic, it's neat introducing a male character fully comfortable in showing feminine traits and feels no need to prove his masculinity to himself

initially, with a cast filled with either eccentric personalites like miu, kaito, or tenko to the more brooding characters like ryoma, maki, or shuichi, kiyo comfortabley takes a spot as a seemingly collected head, especially after the loss of kirumi and rantaro

again these are purely subjective, but now onto using a braincell >:)

tw: mentions of inc*st, grooming, and abuse

please click off if these topics cause discomfort to you

"I thought he would be popular"

Did you know that one of kodaka's favorite characters is korekiyo and that he was shocked by kiyo's lack of popularity

source: https://kaibutsushidousha.tumblr.com/post/187409893464/artbook-data-writer-team-interview

Kodaka: To me, the most unexpectedly unpopular character was Korekiyo Shinguuji, not Hoshi. I mean, his uniform is awesome and his unstable relationship with his sister feels like a classic underground movie. Shinguuji is one of my personal favorites and I thought he would be popular. But the people playing the game called him “gross”

Which ... is weird especially considering the pretty abysmal character assassination near the end of kiyo's screentime in the game. Compared to prior chapter 3 killers, who usually tend to be the least sympathized for their double kills and very self-interested motives (celestia's being greed and mikan's being devotion for one person over her classmates ... and maybe lust idk??), kiyo ranks one of the worst. not just stopping at being a serial killer, he does it all for the love he feels for his sister.

Like idk about u but i would have just stopped at the serial killer part (which is an insane sentence for me to write lol)

But i think that it does make a bit of sense for kodaka's shock, as once u shift the perspective to being a writer, kiyo's character concept starts to make sense.

See i think when we consume stories, espeically linear stories, we have the subconcious assumption that the story beats we encounter had been created in that exact succession. We assume the writer creates the story in the exact linear progression of beginning, middle, and end.

but in truth, most creative processes don't work like that. ideas can date from the intialization of a story concept may not get implemented until the middle or even the end of a story. the ironic thing about stories is that even though they are a straightforward experience for the audience, they are all over the place on the writer's end.

so when we encounter the big trial 3 twist of kiyo's true nature, it feels very much like the the writing room also got to this point during drafting and had a conversation like

"Hmmm ... crap, now we gotta put a motive here. any ideas?"

"uhhh .... OH i got it. he's an actually a siscon serial killer who killed for his deceased sister :D i mean he's already creepy so it works"

"hmmm ... any other suggestions ... no? Alright sure let's go with that"

like yeah im sure no one actually thought this happened, but it definetely feels like that on the audience's side. for a character literal last 10% of screentime, the VERY LAST IMPRESSIONS OF THEM, completely make a sharp nose dive is pretty jarring. It's both parts boring because it just proves shady people looking like kiyo always should be suspected as well as shocking to know he was THAT creepy.

but let's actually shift to the possible perspective of the writing team

Amazing Monster, Wrong Genre

So what was the initial purpose the writing team had when conceptualizing korekiyo into the cast?

source: https://kaibutsushidousha.tumblr.com/post/169561747724/artbook-data-korekiyo-shinguuji

(btw shout out to this blog's translations for drv3 supplementary material it helped out a lot!!)

Kodaka: I had already decided to make chapter 3 feel like a Japanese horror movie, so I need a character who were familiar with nursery songs. As you presume, I decided to have a Super High School Level Anthropologist to fill that job.

From my understanding, it seems that in early on, kodaka wanted to have a horror theme for his new game's chapter 3. and that suddenly fully recontextualizes kiyo in this narrative. kiyo's purpose is to be the bogeyman of chapter 3, utlizing the dr formula of the double kill to heighten the feeling that a bogeyman has been let loose in the school, espeically in its most spooky chapter in the franchise.

we assume (lol im assuming u assumed this hahaha) that kiyo was first thought up as an anthropologist and then along the way of writing chapter 3, he was selected to be written off - since maybe the writing crew had no other major plot ideas for him - and just had a really strange motive stapled on.

but according to kodaka's words, korekiyo was primarily first to be a homage to japanese horror villains. kodaka really wanted this creepy atmosphere to the murder case, likely taking influence to japanese horror and its use of legends and folk tale to give his new ch3 killer a talent that can add to the overall vibe of the trial.

moreover, japanese horror is the largest influence for kiyo's conceptualization, as compared to other cultures' horror, japanese horror emphasizes supernatural and psychological horror most. The supernatural creature of the Onryō pops up a lot in japanese horror media (The Ring is the most popular example i know of, as well as the Japanese folktale, Yotsuya Kaidan), which usually is of a vengeful young woman who met an untimely death. They usually have long black hair that envelopes their face with sharp makeup to show their villainous status. This could connect to Kiyo's long black hair, a trait he shares due to his older, deceased sister.

Kodaka: Maybe it’s just me that loves this kind of underground story character too much. I thought he would be well-received among the fans of Suehiro Maruo’s mangas, but I still haven’t seen any comment saying that so far.

Now i dont know too much japanese horror media (probably cuz american lol) but Suehiro Maruo's name rang alarm bells in my head. To those out of the know and too lazy to search up, Suehiro Maruo is a prolific horror manga artist, being the mind behind the infamous book and subsequent anime adaptation, Shoujo Tsubaki. It also spawned the movie adaptation, Midori, which was banned across the world upon its release for its graphic content. This work is quintessential to maruo's works' general themes, centering on the outcasts of humanity, body horror, nihilism in the face of cruelty, and paraphilia.

So yeah ... really for the faint of heart and def would not recommend checking out at night time unless u plan on being an insomniac o__o

But it is very important in contextualizing kiyo if u take into account that Maruo's work may have been a major influence.

Maruo's works aesthetics can already be connected to kiyo's design: Korekiyo's military outfit is very reminscent of showa-era outfits, a time period that Maruo's work takes heavy influence from. The bandages wrapped around kiyo's arms could also be drawn from maruo's interest illustrating physical deformities.

However, it goes deeper when u take into account of kiyo's own ... twisted love that defines his character. maruo's work depicts a lot of disgusting acts of "desire" (desire is an understatement), displaying the horrors of humanity to the reader. the writing staff may have noticed this attribute and thought that adding such an aspect to their own horror character could increase the groteque factor.

it can come across as the writers' own weird reasoning to just insert inc*st into this random character (tho im not at all defending whatever the hell was going on with the monokubs in ch4 ugh), but under this context, it seems more like the writing team wanted to replicate the horror maruo's work evokes. i mean, while maruo's work has obviously drawn criticsm for it going too far, there still are fans of his work who defend it by saying it is in the horror genre, so what do you expect?

so we have general japanese supernatural and Maruo's work, but there is one final ingredient to our kiyo character stew (hahaha get it cuz ... his exectuion ... melting pot hahah... ill see myself out) So moving across the ocean, we arrive at the classic American horror movie, Pscyho from 1960. Specifically to the horror movie's antagonist, Norman Bateman.

And yeah, the parallels between Korekiyo and Norman are very obvious.

Both are serial killers with quiet outer personas

Both have a split personality, specifically a feminine persona, that drives their killing sprees

both have inc*stuous (for norman, it is more implied and more overtly abusive) with the sole, older female figure in their life (kiyo's being his older sister, while norman is his mother)

And to prove that norman bateman directly inspired the writers during the creative process, the villain of the light novel spin-off, Danganronpa: Kirigiri, is called Norman with the practically same character concept from the 1960 film. And the writer of this light novel? No other than Danganronpa V3's co-writer, Takekuni Kitayama.

So what did this deep dive into korekiyo's character concept prove? really it is just to show that no, the inc*st wasn't this last minute character shift but something that is, whether we like it or not, the core of kiyo's character. kiyo is a monster, and thats the reason kodaka loved writing him. it is similar to why people enjoy horror antagonists. they are these interesting character studies that are worth deep diving into the worst of humanity and to watch how the tragedy of how this villain is formed.

in a sense, like how kiyo is obssessed with observing the beauty of humanity, kiyo's conceptualization is about the supposed audience is observing the horror of humanity seen through kiyo.

but there's a bit of a monkey wrench in all of this.

kiyo is a horror character stuck in a danganronpa game, which according to wikipedia is "a mix of adventure, visual novel, detective and dating simulator elements"

whoops

Danganronpa is a game, which if u haven't checked ... is about not knowing about the murderer that might be standing next to u, hence the "detective elements". So when you have this super cool, totally spooky character that you really wanna put into your new murder mystery game, you kinda run into the problem that you cant reveal he's this terrible person from the start.

Which is what causes Kiyo to go cold turkey for the first two chapters. they couldn't just reveal him to be a serial killer right away, otherwise the audience will say korekiyo is just another, less subversive genocide jill clone. but korekiyo is a horror character, who only work when the horror about them is revealed right away. watch any horror movie, and you would be pretty upset if the monster is revealed in the last 10% of the movie. while that makes sense for a mystery novel's culprit, it can't work for the horror homage kiyo is meant to be. horror works when the antagonist has a strong horrifying prescense that adds pressure to the mc. kiyo doesn't do that because he can't do that.

not to mention the "dating sim elements". the writing staff dont just have to find a way to fit kiyo into the unsuspecting cast, they also have to make him "likeable" to some players to consider him an option for free time. its where those superficial aspects of him that i enjoy come into play. some players enjoy those traits and as the dating sim formula suggests, will become attatched to kiyo in a positive way.

.... which only further ruins kiyo's horror set up. it is the root of the issues regarding korekiyo's character and what makes me liking him so complicated. kodaka and the team really wanted to have a culprit similar to their favorite horror media to slip into their ch3 mystery set-up. i bet writing his trial 3 breakdown was cathartic since they finally were able to write the whole point of kiyo's character from the start. but the problem is that because they had to work in the parameters of a dr game which demands opposing things from its characters (having room to grow and having something likeable/redeemable about them), they created a contradictory set-up for kiyo.

sure he was creepy, but after two chapters of him not doing much except showing that its the way he chooses to express himself, it felt to me that dr was trying to send a message to not judge a book by its cover. And thats a fine message, but it never was something the writers intended, so when they actually implemented their idea, the whole point of korekiyo's charcter become lost in translation.

Side tangent: ... the gender thing

(honestly idk how to feel about this section but this is more of my opinion and id love to hear anyone's take on this point)

Now dr has a messy track history with gender (oh boy im talking abt gender now oof). while chihiro and sakura both are extrememly likeable characters and have traits outside of their gender expression, it doesn't change the fact that the handling of chihiro's reveal and sakura's treatment from the rest of the cast throughout the games can come across as tasteless. though i'd argue that how kiyo's gender is handled is probably the worst.

so kiyo is meant to be a strong allusion to norman bateman, and along with it, him being the "mommy's boy". trope. another similar horror example is Jason Voorhees, the antag behind Friday the 13th. The trope usually features the male character having a controlling maternal figure, usually due to the abscense of a father figure. while it usually is played for laughs (not good either), in horror specifically, it usually is the reasoning behind why the male antagonist is a killer and inhuman. There's a strong implication that because of a strong female influence in these male characters' lives, they grew up unmanly and thus dysnfunctional, worthy of being ostracised for their lack of masculinity.

and while you can argue that ofc the problamatic aspect of the trope will be present with kiyo since he is meant to be a nod to this trope, it doesn't take away from how kiyo is treated compared to other male characters. it feels very much that because of his sister's overbearing influence (i will also get to her later), kiyo's understanding of himself has become warped, so thus his gender expression is called into question.

for one, he is the only masc character during argument Armament to have his defeat sprite sexualize him. now while all argument armaments seem to be the point to sexualize characters (unfortunetly ....) look at how kaito is potrayed compared to kiyo and the framing of their defeat sprites shows the difference. kaito still is shown standing and emphasizes how wounded he is, but because of kiyo's feminine nature, it is somehow okay for him to be potrayed in a position that emphasizes his weakness.

moreover, kiyo's androgyny doesn't seem to be a seperate part of his identity but rather all a memento to his deceased sister. he mentions that his uniform is selected by his sister, and he had chosen to grow out his hair also for his sister (though that was revealed in the spin off manga, which aren't exactly canon but it falls in line with how kiyo is written). Instead of his gender expression being something he chooses to do, it is because of his very toxic love for his sister. it feels like they had to justify his androgyny, which diminishes the value it has.

He wears makeup not because he wants to but because his sister persona wants to. Yes, it is because of him being a norman bateman refrence but it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that kiyo is demonized for being feminine.

"Apologize, apologize, apologize"

but okay, if he is meant to be the norman bates character, there is no evidence to show that kiyo's older sister was abusive ... except ...

I remember when i initially finished v3 and saw posts online about korekiyo, i was a bit baffled by him being a supposed "victim". nothing from kiyo's dialgoue ever implied that he felt mistreated by his sister. he's literally in love with her, how could he possibly be abused by her?

though isnt that the red flag right there? if kiyo was abused, he may not have known due to his infatuation. So time to do a deep dive about kiyo's sister.

We don't have much time with "her" (Kiyo's sister persona), so whatever we do get of her has to be chosen to effectively convey her who she is in such a short amount of time. Though it is not directly kiyo's sister, it likely is the entry point we have to understand how kiyo viewed her.

So when does his sister persona manifest? It happens right after kiyo starts to breakdown when kaito claims it is all clear how angie's murder was planned out, likely from realizing that he is practically caught at this point. Kiyo for the first time has lost composure in the game (in line with most trial 3 culprits) , with his sister interuppting then.

Sister persona: Sweet Korekiyo, calm yourself ...

Out of the gate, kiyo's sister persona's first action is to calm kiyo down, giving him a direct command.

Sister persona: Their words are all hollow. There is no meaning to them. You must teach these ignorant children a lesson.

Right after, kiyo's sister persona discredits everyone around kiyo to ensure he is calm, trying to place kiyo above them all by calling all his classmates children. I will touch back on this later.

Skipping ahead to after kiyo is accused of angie's murder, we get this exchange.

Korekiyo: N-No ... I'm not the culprit ...! S-So ... why is everyone looking at me like I am ...? Why! Why are they!? Why is it --

Sister persona: Calm yourself, Korekiyo.

Korekiyo: Y-yes ...!

Sister persona: You mustn't raise your voice. You mustn't stutter. You mustn't lose composure. You mustn't become flustered. You mustn't waver.

Again, the moment Korekiyo starts to lose his composure, his sister persona steps in to command him to stop. Remember, out of anything the writing crew could have written for korekiyo's sister, it was her few first lines where he gives command after command to korekiyo. And we see these commands already play out with kiyo prior in the game. He never has raised his voice nor stuttered prior to trial 3 (though i could be misremembering), so him doing so now shows he is stepping out of line of what his sister previously told him, hence why she has to reassert herself.

And Kiyo ofc fully submits to his sister, having regained his compsure right after.

Sister persona: Look at their horrid faces. This sorry lot is not worth agonizing over.

We see here again the sister persona pushing others away from kiyo and placing kiyo above them. Now while this can come off as kiyo indirectly telling himself he is better than his classmates, this is the second time his sister persona says something like this, meaning it had to have been a pattern in their relationship, where his sister would push others away, and in a way, isolating him.

Korekiyo: Y-You're right... Yeah ... You're right.

Aside from how it is clear how Kiyo shows his devotion in his "sister", it also shows how he corrects himself here. When his sister said to not stutter, he initally stutters before fixing it.

Also just hearing kiyo say "yeah" just sounds so weird to me. Idk maybe he's talked more casually prior, but i feel that it is only in this trial does kiyo's speech tend to break up and sound a bit more colloquial. normally i feel he would say yes lol. but i could be wrong

Sister persona: Well said ... Good job, Korekiyo.

Korekiyo: Yes ... thanks.

After kiyo regains his compsoure to claim he won't acknowledge shuichi's accusation, his sister persona compliments him, and again we see kiyo's speech slip to a bit more colloqiual when he says "thanks" rather than "thank you". It could be that he picked up his manner of speaking from his sister as well.

After the closing arguement, we see kiyo still in distress

Korekiyo: Uh ... Uuuhhh...

Sister persona: Sweet Korekiyo, there are times when it's necessary to admit defeat.

Korekiyo: A-Admit...? ... Yeah... Okay ...

But once his sister persona tells him to admit defeat, it takes him a few moments before finally admitting to the crime. It once again displays the level of control his sister persona has over kiyo, being the only way kiyo seemed willing to acquiese.

Again, the writing staff could have written anything here for how kiyo's sister persona would work, but they chose this kind of diagloue for her, where she primiarly praises kiyo, gives commands, and isolates him.

knowing that kiyo's sister grew up sickly and without any human connections, the story kind of writes itself from there.

Without any real friends, kiyo's sister was driven desperate for an ... intimiate human connection, and the only one she had would unfortunetly be her younger brother. Due to her being an older sister, she was very strict with him, but provided him praise and comfort to keep him around her. Furthermore, she would put down kiyo's peers by praising kiyo as better than them. The line where kiyo's sister refers to everyone else as children earlier rings especially strange since kiyo is the same age as everyone there. But it gives off the idea that kiyo's sister (who obviously would be older than kiyo's classmates) called them children to make kiyo feel he is more mature, which holds its own disgusting implications.

I don't think that kiyo's sister inherently meant harm to kiyo, but it is highly likely that in her desperation, she used her power over kiyo for her own selfish needs. It fits right into the tragedy you would see in horror, where the worst of humanity seeps through, culminating into the monster we would see as the antagonist of the fiction.

(Speculative tangent here lol: I think another interesting note is how kiyo's mind seems to break into two whenever he is put into high amounts of distress. I'm not going to engage in the whole "what kind of mental illness does he have" since a) im not qualified and b) i dont even think the writing staff cared tbh but whatever he has, it is clear he has to strict personas when under intense stress. When he was backed into a wall during the trial, kiyo claims repeatedly during both the trial and the arguement arnament that he doesn't know why he is the culprit. It does seem like classic denial from any culprit, but kiyo's is different as he is demanding an answer from his sister to assure him otherwise. he stutters more and can't form full sentences while his sister persona speaks fully and more like the kiyo we are used to. It does feel like he isnt fully aware of his actions, which lines up with him when he says later he lost his mind following his sister's death. To me, Kiyo attempts to emmulate his sister to stay in touch with reality as he viewed his sister as the one in control of his world. so when he can't react properly, his mind splits where his sister becomes very literal in his mind in order to soothe himself. likely due to his overdependence on her, he couldnt image himself seperated from the only human connection he had. all im saying is that his sister is the coping mechanism that a very unstable korekiyo needs in order to stay whole.)

I can fix hi - his writing i mean

So in a very twisted way, I don't hate the decision for korekiyo to have his story center around his inc*stuous love. It definetly took a lot of straining my perspective but i do see the remnents of korekiyo, a monster born from the monsterous actions in his life, working.

but you can't potray such a backstory within the last five minutes of your character's screentime. And especially with how heavy the subject material is, some level of foreshadowing is neccessary in order to feel like this plot detail is treated with some level of respect.

but obviously the writers can't. this is just some one-off trial they just wanted to write to be spooky, not this psychological deep dive into one culprit's backstory. But they should have realized that they don't have the time to properly set this up nor execute it , so i agree with most people when it is best to cut out the inc*st. kiyo's sister should have been set up a bit more, maybe in chapter 2, where kiyo speaks a bit more of how he is influenced by his sister in his wardrobe and his talent, so she is in the back of our minds. But kiyo could refer to her in the present, so the actual twist of chapter 3 is that she is dead and that kiyo has his sister persona.

I think the sister persona makes sense, since it adds to the supernatural theming of chapter 3 and pays off what is beneath his mask. It could be a simpler story of kiyo falling into grief for a sister he admired. Maybe he feels guilt over how miserable his sister's life was, thinking he is responsible for his sister's decline health cuz u know, he probably was a kid when his sister died and kids tend to blame themselves. Really just keep it to be a normal, albeit dependent, sibling love he has, where his actions spawned from grief, not this uncomfortable combination between grief and lust.

But if the writers really were insistent that on writing inc*st so late into kiyo's screen time, i have one last-minute fix.

Its that damn cg that plays in post-trial. you know ... that one which kiyo narrates his love for his sister. The one where we see said romance, and it has this whole flowery look to it. now it can be argued it shows how kiyo is an unreliable narrator, where he has romantisized his relationship with his sister.

but i dont care. its just gross to depict this unhealthy dynamic in such an ... irresponsible way. It is like the dr staff couldnt help themselves, they just had to draw kiyo and his sister practically naked. which like no ... just dont use this as an excuse to sexualize your minor characters AGAIN

In my concept, the image can be replaced by depicting a more grim image of kiyo's relationship with his sister. show her trapped in her hospital bed, sickly and her face obscured by her unkempt, overgrown hair. But kiyo sits close by, his face cupped in her palms, with just the two of them trapped in that hospital room from the rest of humanity, with only each other.

kiyo's dialogue can overall be the same (maybe tweak a bit to show his grief more) juxtaposing his idyllic recollection to the grimmer reality we are presented. Maybe it's not the best change, but what i wish they emphasized was less of the actual inc*st and more of the horror. u know ... the supposed basis of kiyo as a character.

so yeah ... i guess i am a korekiyo fan

Korekiyo is a character that when i say i do like him, it kinda means i like the concept of him and the few parts of him, not the whole disaster we got. i know dr always struggles in fully executing their cast of characters on account that, you know ... most of them gotta die. but i do think that if the writers recongized the limitations and adapted kiyo better for the dr story structure, kiyo may have been more popular like kodaka expected.

i dont need this super large angsty story of kiyo (thats what head canons are for anyway :D ) but what i did need was just a bit more respect given to his story and him as a character. not saying you can't give kiyo any moments of comedic relief (i think because they couldnt make him too obviously evil at the beginning, the writers ended up making him a kind of comedic character in how over the top creepy he is, which i think works), but dont give the audience such a last-minute character reveal that could break just about any character, regardless of how far back in advanced the reveal was planned.

anyway i dont have any proper ending for this and i have been writing for 3 hours so yeah ty for reading if u read this far :D

#danganronpa #the best analysis ever #korekiyo shinguji #you did such a great job #this deserves more reblog imo #fav

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